


at least, it’s lent

by khlassique



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: F/M, extreme yearning and other histrom tropes shoved into 4k words, naming as an act of love, non-canon compliant (kinda)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:07:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21661918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khlassique/pseuds/khlassique
Summary: “His voice caught, as if he started to speak in the middle of inhaling, looking up at her from below the hut’s front porch. She came down one step towards him, the sun illuminating her head in a blinding halo, and he lowered his face.”
Relationships: The Mandalorian/Omera (The Mandalorian TV)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 279





	at least, it’s lent

**Author's Note:**

> title from joanna newsom’s “a pin-light bent”
> 
> "from the Great Light that shines through a pin-hole,  
> when the pin-light calls itself Selfhood  
> and the Selfhood inverts on a mirror  
> in an Amora Obscura
> 
> but it’s mine. Or, at least, it’s lent”

It had been a long time since he’d stayed around this much green. Any desert planet had oases, scattered in the sandy geography, usually with a small settlement around it, but that is what they were: scattered. Bounties on forest planets still took no more than a week if the quarry had gone to ground, but here he was, three weeks on Sorgan. Greef Karga would have laughed if he could see his top hunter, told him that of course he’d vacation in some backwater fishing hole instead of on a lovely little spa planet. Karga would have laughed even harder had he seen who their hostess was, regardless of the stony silence across the table.

There was a routine here, one he slipped into with a surprising ease. No one looked at him with fear; no villager subtly put a hand to their child’s shoulder to pull them closer as he passed. The weaving circle let him join, accepting his silence and chattering around him as their hands kept busy with the reeds. Stacking finished baskets in his arms, he would move to the krill ponds, exchanging empty baskets for full, sometimes seeing the kid- _his_ kid, he allowed himself to think for now, with a surprising possessiveness- amongst the other children. 

One day, the kid had fallen over, scraping his knee. The alien cry ad brought him running across the village to where the circle of children gathered, stricken at the sound, Winta holding the wailing kid in her lap. 

“Here, here,” he said, offering out his hands to take the kid, cradling the solid weight in the crook of his arm. The kid sniffled, turning his face to the metal armor chest piece, leaving a streak of snot that would have to be cleaned later. As they walked back to their hut, he bounced his arm a bit, and the kid cooed happily, fall and scrape forgotten. Omera met him at the door, walking out with laundry underneath her arm, smile rising from her lips to her eyes as steady as smoke. 

“Do you have a med kit?” His voice caught, as if he started to speak in the middle of inhaling, looking up at her from below the hut’s front porch. She came down one step towards him, the sun illuminating her head in a blinding halo, and he lowered his face.

“By the stove.” Their faces now level, she looked to the kid, leaning towards him and reaching a free hand to brush a plump green cheek of its tears. “Poor boy, your da will get you fixed right up.”

He thought he could smell her, so close she was, her breath condensing on his helmet for only a moment. Then her hand brushed his shoulder, squeezed lightly as she walked past, the armor keeping him from feeling the imprint of her fingers but his body recognizing the phantom touch. His hand came up against where he could feel the lingering heat through his gloves, then went inside to disinfect the kid’s wound. 

When Omera returned, he lounged on the sofa in the small common living space, the kid napping securely against his chest. The span of his hand covered the little womp rat’s back, and he wondered at what made this kid so important to what would be his last ever client. He hadn’t spent much time around other children since his own youth, and even then it had been taken up with his training, face obscured. A benefit to the helmet, he’d thought once at 16, was no girl or boy would ever see the constellation of acne across his cheeks and think him unhandsome for it. There was one mirror on his ship, in the bathing room, but he rarely looked into it- or tried not to. When he did look at his reflection, it was with the same animal startlement of prey trapped by bright lights. _Who_ was _this_ , his mind would exclaim, _who_ is _this, in what feels like our skin!_ And so he would look closer, recognizing perhaps the color of his hair in a distant memory of what must be his mother, the width of his nose on what must be his father. The last living reminder of what they looked like in all the galaxy, underneath besker armor. 

So he thought of this while looking at his hostess and the high curve of her cheek, the peaks of her lips, the wave of her hair down her back. She would never be able to study him as he did her, in these secret moments, unless– 

It was tempting, the idea of surrendering. He could remove his helmet right now, say her name in a voice unfiltered by a mic, see the bright surprise on her face as she realized he was hers forever. The kid would wake up and reach a curious little hand towards his face. He _could_ do this. But–

“My name is Dyn. Dyn Jarren.”

Omera turned to him, a shirt in her hands. One of his. He’d said he could do his laundry, the first week, but she’d insisted it wasn’t any trouble. He’d repaired the roof the next day, sheepishly telling her that this was his form of payment, never mind that he’d vanquished the raiders. That alone kept him in the village’s good favor for the rest of his life.

She’d kept doing his laundry, and he’d kept repairing things for her, or making their dinner. Both mother and daughter had exclaimed over the savory herbs he’d brought from another planet and placed in a krill stew, his cheeks heating under their praise. It was almost uncomfortable, to be praised for something other than killing or hunting, to allow himself to be seen as more.

“Dyn?” Her voice was curious, low so as not to wake the kid; she smiled, the edges of her eyes crinkling, at his nod. “Dyn Jarren. I like it.”

A lock of hair had fallen across her face as she leaned down to the basket, and the brush of her own hand to sweep it back made Dyn wish it was his own naked fingers instead. Was this what it was to _want_? It inflamed him, had since she’d picked up a rifle and hit her target square, treated him as if he wore no mask. 

“It was, ah, my grandfather’s name. I think.” He felt he owed her an explanation, for whatever reason. The kid grumbled in his sleep, trying to snuggle deeper into the armor.

“You think?” No judgment in her question. For someone so used to it, the lack was almost a benediction. 

“Haven’t seen my parents since I was taken in by the Mandalore. Dunno if I’m misremembering.” His hand pressed a little firmer onto the kid’s back. This small admission of his past, and still he kept from her. 

A towel snapped in the air, efficiently folded before she answered, “That is a thing you will always remember correctly, no matter how far from family you are, Dyn.”

\--

There was a bonfire that night, the village gathered to share dishes and dance. A group of musicians put up a rollicking tune, the children attempting the dance and laughing as they fell, the kid doing his best to toddle around a twirl with his hands in the air. Dyn let him stand on his feet for a little bit, awkwardly doing some kind of circular step while hunched over his passenger. Omera and Winta were graceful dancers, mother sweeping daughter around in what Dyn thought was called a waltz amongst the nobility. He’d seen it done once, from the shadows of a wealthy man’s garden, waiting to snag the bounty when they’d come to have a rendezvous in the dark. They’d had one, just not the kind they’d wanted to happen. Good money, that job. It had paid for a few foundlings’ meals for a year.

Then the kid had been taken away to play, and Dyn sat watching the crowd from a seat halfway into the shadows. Cara flirted with a woman who twirled a lock of hair around her finger as she looked up into the former rebel’s eyes. Despite her gruff ways, the woman was apparently a natural at attracting a partner, a skill the Mandalore had never encouraged their children to develop. 

So Dyn just watched Omera, secretly and safely, until she came to stand in front of him, panting but smiling, with her hand extended. 

“Do you dance?”

Sweat and movement made her hair wild, her face flushed deep with color, so entirely lovely in her joy he could only trust himself to shake his head. Her hands grasped his, pulling hard enough to only suggest that he should stand, but up he went as easily as if he were a paper doll. 

“Then I will teach you, Dyn Jarren. A man should know how to dance.”

It took a few tries before she slowly led him in the proper steps, made awkward by his armor, but she did not let his tripping turn into a fall, and no one laughed at him except as encouragement. When they could both step without him trying to stare at his feet, she tilted her head and looked into the eye slit of his helmet. He knew, he _knew_ she could not see his eyes and yet it felt as if he were naked. 

“No one will begrudge you if you stay.”

“Do you mean no one, or just you?”

Her face turned a shade redder, a charming tell. “Winta is fond of you as well.”

“But are you?” It was a ridiculous question to ask, more fitting for when he had been an awkward boy of 16 than a grown man, but he couldn’t help himself. “Fond?”

“Yes. It’s why I’ve the patience to teach you to dance. I’d have tossed a more annoying partner into a krill pond by now to end my misery.”

He did not laugh, exactly, but the noise he made conveyed enough amusement that she gave him a little smile and whispered conspiratorially, “And I certainly wouldn’t tell anyone else that I sleep alone.”

The helmet hid the flare of red on his own cheeks. 

\--

Later, when the moon had fully waned and the stars were covered by clouds, when a small village in the middle of the Sorgan forest was blanketed in a deep, quiet dark, Dyn slipped from his bed and across the hut, the night vision of his helmet allowing him to avoid tripping over furniture. Omera slept deeply, body curled around her pillow, mouth slightly open. He sat on the edge of the mattress, running a gloved hand over her cheek. With a deep sigh, she woke, turning her face into the touch before opening her eyes. 

“If you– if you want this–”

“I do.” Her voice was so calm and steady even with the roughness of clinging sleep, so unlike the pounding of his heart as he tucked part of a length of cloth into her hand. 

“Then I need you to put this over your eyes, I can’t–” he took a deep breath. _Steady, steady. Think of aiming across the desert with your blaster. Think of how the world narrows down to only you and the gun._ “I can’t have you see me.”

A rustle of fabric as she sat up; he could make out the bare curve of her breast underneath the nightshirt in the stark relief of night vision. 

“Only if I can still touch you, Dyn. _Everywhere_.” The authority in her voice went straight to his cock. He learnt best through strict orders. 

“Of course.” The rest of the blindfold slipped over his palm. Cyrene silk, part of a bounty payment from Naboo. Rumor was, someone had stolen it from the Queen’s wardrobe. Butterflies were embroidered in gold thread on a dark blue background.

He waited until her eyes were completely covered by the dark silk to begin removing his armor, starting with his gloves. It would take several unbearable minutes to remove the rest, so he couldn’t resist putting his naked fingers to the back of her hand as it rested on the blankets. She clasped his hand in both of hers as she had earlier when asking him to dance, except this time she brought his hand up to her mouth. Her lips were dry, but the unexpected hot wet swipe of her tongue across his knuckles caused him to swallow deeply.

“Undress for me. I want to feel you.”

He obeyed, hands only minimally shaking as he carefully piled his priceless, dangerous armor on the floor, watching through his helmet as Omera lounged on her bed, head turned in his direction though she was effectively blind. He knew very little of art, but a sculptor would kill to carve any form so fine. 

“Does it hurt?” 

“To take off my armor?”

“To do so in front of me, even if I cannot truly see you. I– I know the comfort in a uniform.”

Cool air brushed the bare expanse of his back as he leaned over to take off the thin wool stockings he wore beneath his boots. His trousers were next. Layer by layer, revealing to the world Dyn Jarren, untouched by armor. Who he could have been. Who he could be. 

“Do you? Know about uniforms?” His questions made him sound slow, he knew. She didn’t seem to mind.

“Sorgan was not untouched by the war. Some of us went to fight with the Rebellion.” A beat, heavy with meaning. “I was the only one to come home.” At this her head turned from him, lips pressed tight. “But that is in the past.”

“Yes.” He said this kindly, a simple word to say while standing nude except for his helmet in the dark. So much was in the past, and he was in this room in order to live in some version of the present. And yet. His hands rested on the sides of his helmet, frozen. 

“Come to bed, Dyn.” The words so soft and sweet and commanding. 

He went, her hands reaching for him in the dark, frowning as she knocked her hand against metal. His hands covered hers, and together they lifted it from his head, setting it gently on the floor. With an efficient movement, she took off her nightshirt, but without the helmet’s night vision he could not see the color of her nipples, if she was as tan on her stomach as she was on the thin skin of her neck. When her hands pulled him towards her, he did not resist; if he decided to stay, would he ever resist her? There had been a couple he’d seen while on a job; married and older, a woman laughing as her wife pulled her into a deep kiss on a street corner. Simple. It was appealing, simplicity. He could have a wife. He could have _this_ woman as his wife, this woman who arched under his touch as he mapped her body with trembling hands, who reached for him with as much enthusiasm. 

Emotion overwhelmed him at a foreign hand sliding across his face, tracing his features with tenderness. The body did not understand what his brain had for so long, the tenets of his religion, and cried out to be touched like this forever, to be learned and relearned. _How dare you deny this_. She did not touch him below his chest, and he still breathed heavily in anticipation. 

“I know I cannot, but I would so dearly love to see this face. My fingers tell me it is handsome.” Those same fingers pressed over his lips. On impulse, he leaned forward, catching the tips with his teeth, running his tongue to catch the salty sweet taste of her skin. 

“My eyes have been telling me your own face is very beautiful, Omera.” Was this his voice, unfettered by the helmet’s mic system? The clearness of it, marred only by the depth of lust. 

Omera made a noise deep in her throat, what could have been his name, before pulling his face to hers, lips settling against each other with the awkward clash of those unable to see. 

This was new territory, and so he followed her lead until she pulled back her head. 

“Have you ever kissed a woman, Dyn?”

He shook his head, realized she could not see the movement, and instead choked out, embarrassed, “No.”

“Have you ever–”

“–No.” He cut her off, unwilling to speak out loud that he was as untouched as the snow on some abandoned mountainside in parts of the galaxy even more backwater than Sorgan. 

“Hm.” She could have been smiling; the tone of her voice indicated it, but there was warmth in the laughter. It was not _at_ him. “It’s been said I am a decent teacher. Now lie down.”

She straddled his hips, leaning over him so her hair, that lovely hair, fell like a curtain, and Dyn groaned. 

“ _Hot_.” It was all he could manage at the feel of the heat of her cunt resting over his cock, her lips at the tender junction of his neck and shoulder. Her hair slid across his face, the silk covering her eyes cool to the touch, and then her lips were on his again; this time his movements were more desperate, accepting her tongue into his mouth, licking and biting back as she was doing, growing harder at the slow roll of her body over his. 

Another pause to their kissing; he finally felt sweat all over his body, lifting his head to lick at the salt gathered on Omera’s collarbone. She rolled her hips again before saying, “Did you know you can kiss a woman on places that aren’t her lips, my Dyn?”

He pushed himself fully up, catching her close with one arm wrapped firmly around her back. He had been into underground sex clubs before to hunt his quarry. How the customers had thought it fun to try and tempt him, not knowing he would have just have rather shot them all than bring his bounty home alive, damn the money. 

“Can you, now.” With that, he flipped them over so he hovered on his elbows above her, pressing a quick kiss to her neck. “Here, then?”

“No.”

“Here?” Between her breasts, where he could feel her laughter this time against his lips, her ribs.

Lower, and lower still, until she slid her leg over his shoulder and he was too occupied to ask questions, following the one word orders she breathed into the night air. Enthusiasm overcame some part of inexperience. 

Afterwards, when his body slid back up alongside hers, when she pushed him back down and slid him inside, when he sat up again in mirror of their earlier pose, clutching her tightly, the entirety of a life without the order of his youth stretched enticingly before him. 

When he came, falling down into the mattress, overwhelmed with the entirety of the feeling, she lay next to him, fingers through his hair, soft words on her lips of how he was good, so good, a good man, her man. 

Her hair stuck to his skin, but it was still soft against his bare fingers, the silk of the blindfold almost imperceptibly fine against his knuckles. The knot was still secure, but he could slip it off so easily. All of this, so easily. The body wishing to curl up like a cat in sunshine, so satisfied it was. Every night, no blindfold, just them. 

No. No. If she was to see him for the first time, it would be in daylight. He would let her remove his helmet, if she wished for him to stay; the choice was an act more binding than a marriage vow. The armor would have to be sent back to the Tribe somehow, no matter how hard won it was to him. There would be a foundling to take his place; they would need it more than he. 

Such thoughts he had, until dawn came, until he slipped from Omera’s bed with one last kiss to her forehead and dressed, until the helmet was once again covering his face. 

The kid was still asleep in his cradle. Dyn stood, one hand on the simple wooden railing, looking down at the greatest bounty in the galaxy. The child needed a name, one Dyn would give him if they stayed together here on Sorgan. If he left, if Omera did not want him for more than this one night, he would not leave behind a name upon this creature, which would be like leaving behind a piece of the heart he was slowly starting to rediscover. Omera could name him. There was room enough in her heart yet, for she had made a place for even Dyn Jarren when she’d had no name to call him. 

—

Omera understands the call of duty over love, and she lets him go despite the clasp of his hand on her arm. 

—

It was many years later when he finally returned, the child still in tow. Safe, now, not hunted. A war in and of itself, this child, one they emerged from victorious.

He had looked in the mirror before leaving his ship, noticed the streaks of grey in his hair, the weariness on his face as he’d shaved. Nothing to be done about it now, much like nothing to be done if he was no longer wanted. He would find something. Anything. As long as it didn’t involve fishing.

Curious eyes looked over the transport vehicle as it arrived; somehow Dyn remembered this was not the usual day for a supply run. Then, the wave of recognition at his helmet, the floppy ears of the kid fluttering as he cooed in turn. What happened next, when the crowd was thick around him before parting smoothly in _her_ presence. Grey in her hair, as well, but still more beautiful than setting suns on Tattooine. Winta followed behind, more grown but still unable to contain her joy at seeing the kid again; she rushed to scoop him up.

“Welcome, Dyn.” No one had called him that since her.

“Thank you.” Ah, fuck. All the words he’d spent writing while in hyperspace fled. “I was wondering if…” Greef Karga, laughing again in the back of his mind.

Omera’s face lifted towards him, so familiar to him still, all of it so familiar, giving him the space in which to speak without her demanding it. What he said next was not what he’d intended to say, so the story came haltingly.

“There’s a story from the high poets of Coruscant I heard once, about a man who had been fighting a war for many years, across the galaxy from his wife whom he loved more than the stars. And after the war was over, when it took him many years still to return to her as his ship was broken, and he finally found a place to fix it, a blind woman spoke with him. And the blind woman, in her way, because she was the oracle of that planet, told him that though he was not fighting in a war within the physical realm, the war remained in his heart, so he would know no peace until he returned to his wife, taking her far enough away to where he could lay down the ensign he wore on his breast and the people would recognize the symbol as that of their priests and saviors instead of battle. There he would farm and love his wife and be happy in his way, and the war would be released from his heart.”

Dyn looked at Omera’s throat then, and on seeing the length of midnight Cyrene silk tied lovingly there, could only manage, after what had felt as exquisite and as torturous to compose as poetry with his simple stumbling tongue, “Can this be that place?”

Somehow, during this, she had stepped up to him, so her hands were on his shoulders, his hands wrapped around her forearms, an imitation of the same moment so long ago, her breath sending a flare of fog up his face. Then her hands upon the helmet, a question in her eyes before he nodded on a short, final sigh.

And the helmet lifted, the spring breeze ruffling his flattened hair, her smile in her mouth and eyes; she stood on her toes to kiss his bare cheek in the glorious light of day.

“Forever, Dyn Jarren. Come and farm with me.”

So he did, and let the war from his heart.


End file.
